Be careful not to read too much into what someone from Louisville says while heading out the door _ like the "American Idol" judges did.

The producers of "Idol" apologized Thursday on behalf of its judges, who apparently misinterpreted what a contestant in Louisville, Ky., said after a failed audition. On his way out, Mark Mudd said: "Take care and be careful."

Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell took that as a threat. Abdul scolded Mudd, telling him, "You don't say that to people, 'Be careful.' That's just not a normal thing to say."

It turns out that "Be careful" is a regional parting expression.

The show's producers say they had not heard that from any other contestants, so it took everyone by surprise.

A statement from "Idol" producers said: "We now know better and look forward to visiting Louisville again someday."

I'd like to see officials treated as the rest of the population are treated, but this is Humanity we are talking about here. It will never happen.

Aside from the intrinsic dangers and injustices of arguing for immunity for high-level government officials who commit felonies (such as illegal eavesdropping, obstruction of justice, torture and other war crimes), it's the total selectivity of the rationale underlying that case which makes it so corrupt. Defenders of Bush officials sing in unison: We shouldn't get caught up in the past. We shouldn't be driven by vengeance and retribution. We shouldn't punish people whose motives in committing crimes weren't really that bad.

An Iraqi town has unveiled a giant monument of a shoe in honour of the journalist who threw his footwear at former U.S. President George W. Bush.

The two-metre (six-foot) high statue, unveiled on Thursday in former dictator Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit, depicts a bronze-coloured shoe, filled with a plastic shrub. "Muntazer: fasting until the sword breaks its fast with blood; silent until our mouths speak the truth," reads an inscription, in honour of journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi, who hurled his shoes at Bush and called him a "dog" at a news conference during the former president's final visit to Iraq.

Zaidi has been held in jail in Baghdad since the incident, facing charges of assaulting a visiting head of state.

Fatin Abdul Qader, head of an orphanage and children's organisation in the town, said the one-and-a-half-tonne monument by artist Laith al-Amiri was titled "statue of glory and generosity".

"This statue is the least expression of our appreciation for Muntazer al-Zaidi, because Iraqi hearts were comforted by his throw," she said.

That phrase "moral clarity" -- conservatives use it a lot. And it always sounds absurd to progressive ears, coming as it does from members of an administration that shredded the Constitution, deprived people of due process, committed horrific acts of torture and lied the country into the worst military debacle in its history.

It's always bewildering to listen to such people lecture the rest of us on "moral clarity." What in the hell are they talking about?

Manitoba lesbian couple rejected by a family doctor from Egypt for religious reasons says Canada must better educate foreign-trained physicians.

Andrea Markowski said she and her partner Ginette were stunned when the Winnipeg doctor told them during a "meet-and-greet" appointment she was uncomfortable accepting them as patients and had never treated "people like you" before.

The doctor said she only treated "husbands and wives," said Markowski, who is legally married to her partner of 18 years.

"It was like a kick in the stomach," said Markowski, who just moved to the city from the Northwest Territories. "It was definitely a traumatic and unexpected experience ... She is a doctor who is paid with public funds.

"I have a really hard time understanding how her religion affects her ability to care for me as a human being."

Uh, maybe cause her religion doesn't really see you *as* a human being. I personally don't see this woman as much of a doctor.

Remember as you read this article, the author is trying to convince you that waterboarding is not torture (a word only used once in the piece), and that we should be upset if the U.S. is not permitted to continue the practice...

"It's not painful. It's very effective. You just need to make a quick decision - do I do what they want or risk not breathing ever again. It scares the hell out of you. But painful? No."

And then there's this little gem...

It has been used on a grand total of only three terrorist suspects

Must be ok, if it was only used three times...wonder if that kind of defense would be useful in a murder trial...is there a magic number when waterboarding becomes unacceptable?...four suspects...ten?

By appeasing his left-wing base, he [Obama] is potentially placing millions of innocent Americans in danger.

Those wacky left wingers, always standing up against little things like torture. Sheesh, those hippies..

Seems one of their members had the nerve to react to an historical moment, but was "suspended because he ignored military protocol."

Pull the ramrod out of your ass and chill, you dopes. You're not the fucking marines, but your campaign to make yourselves laugh stock has been completely successful.

An Ohio man who was suspended as the drum major of a band for giving President Obama a nod during last week's inaugural parade is calling it quits.

John Coleman resigned from the Cleveland Firefighters Memorial Pipes & Drums a week after the parade in Washington. Publicity about his suspension had gotten to be too much, he told CNN affiliate WEWS.

"It's come to a point where I don't want embarrassment anymore between the pipe band and myself," Coleman, who is a firefighter, told WEWS on Tuesday.

Coleman was seen during the nationally televised January 20 parade nodding toward the new president while marching with the band. A few steps later, he appeared to wave briefly.

He told WEWS that as the band was marching past the grandstand where Obama was sitting, he made eye contact with the president.

"Contact was made with our eyes both together and he smiled and waved at the band," he told the station. "And just as a gesture, I nodded my head. I gave him a slight wave and went on."

Next step, ban any video taken by any citizen. We don't want those shootings showing up on Youtube, now do we?

Montreal municipal authorities are pondering a possible bylaw change that would allow police officers to fine a citizen who verbally insults them, Chief Inspector Paul Chablo of the Montreal police said Monday.

Bylaws conferring similar powers on the cops are already in effect elsewhere in the province, including Quebec City, Sherbrooke and Three Rivers, he said.

The rule change – discussed by the city executive committee last November – is scheduled for a follow-up in March, Chablo said.

The Montreal Police Brotherhood has been pushing for such a new rule since 2003.

“A bylaw like this has to be clear, it has to be understood by the officers, and it has to be applied in a proper context,” Chablo said.

It would also, he added, “have to respect rights and liberties and freedom of expression.”

Because of free-expression issues, he said, lawyers for Montreal’s civic administration are taking “a very, very cautious and analytical approach.”

No tentative text of any such a bylaw has been released, Chablo said.

He also said he could not provide the possible sizes of fines for first and subsequent offences.

”It’s in the very early stages,” he said. “We haven’t gotten to that point.”

Gee, I wonder if it has anything to do with this story from November...

MONTREAL — It is the most crude of curses in the English language, a four-letter expletive usually avoided in polite company. Yet in Montreal, the f-word is apparently not a swear word at all. A municipal court judge has ruled that a man who repeatedly tossed the expletive at two police officers during a confrontation was not swearing, because he wasn't taking God's name in vain.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Seems Paramount is doing a live action version of the popular animated series Avatar. Only they are casting asian characters with...what for it...white actors.

I'm shocked, shocked!

It takes merely a glance at the title to notice some degree of Asian influence in the hit cartoon series Avatar: The Last Airbender...

...Like almost any successful piece of kid targeted work these days, Avatar has gone down the movie franchise route with the production of a live-action film. M. Night Shyamalan’s on it! Fans are excited!

[No, they should be horrified, but I digress...]

But they, and every person with a minutely cultured brain in her or his head, is probably more offended by Paramount’s decision to cast every main character with a White actor.

Umm, what? I know the voices are mainly Caucasian actors, but even Dante Basco has a role in the actual animated series. Rufio won’t actualize his role as Prince Zuko. Instead, Jesse McCartney will.

Nashville should have consulted with Quebec, they've been suppressing minority language rights for decades.

Nashville voters rejected a proposal on Thursday that would have made it the largest U.S. city to require that all government business be done in English.

With 100 percent of precincts reporting, unofficial results showed the "English First" proposal losing with about 57 percent of voters against it and 43 percent in favor. Proponents said using one language would have united the city and saved money, but business leaders, academics and the city's mayor worried it could give the city a bad reputation.

The somber, elegiac tones before President Obama’s oath of office at the inauguration on Tuesday came from the instruments of Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and two colleagues. But what the millions on the Mall and watching on television heard was in fact a recording, made two days earlier by the quartet and matched tone for tone by the musicians playing along.

The players and the inauguration organizing committee said the arrangement was necessary because of the extreme cold and wind during Tuesday’s ceremony.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Ooo Lordy Lordy, the Mistral Show's in Town! I love all those boys in Gayface!

Jim Carrey, and his immense sacrifice of having to kiss Ewan McGregor:

"If I were to be really honest, there was a homophobic voice that rose up inside me that said, 'Gee, this is kind of scary. First of all, what will people think, and second of all, will I like it? Will I like kissing Ewan? How will that affect me? There were a few people in my world who said, 'Are you sure you want to do this?' And that still exists. I said 'Absolutely' because, sexual preference aside, it is a story that is so compelling and interesting and different. It's about humanity. It is about you love who you love. And love is love. And that's it...."

The Obama administration called on Thursday for the closure of Guantanamo Bay within the next year. The move will be greeted with widespread approval around the world, the end of a blotch on America's image abroad. Coming in the form of an executive order, it carries with it the power of law.

Hahahahahahaha! Perhaps Montreal will be spared the bricked nightmare after all.

Whither Griffintown.

The company behind a $1.3-billion project to redevelop the forlorn neighbourhood south of downtown is drafting a scaled-down Plan B that could replace at least the first phase of its ambitious project.

City council gave Devimco Inc. the green light in April to redevelop the one-million-square-foot area.

However, turmoil in world financial markets has prompted the developer to think about reducing the project's $400-million first phase to something in the ballpark of $200 million, André Bouthillier, spokesman for the developer, said yesterday. Growing economic woes are also clouding the picture of when the project could be built, he added.

"There will be a project," Bouthillier said, adding the developer secured a $210-million financing package to buy up land in the area last year. "But what will the size of the project be? We're in the midst of reflecting on that. ... We're currently looking at an alternative scenario."

It will end up a Walmart and a drive thru McDonalds. They can't fuck that up...can they?

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Monday, January 19, 2009

The legacy Bush leaves behind won't be everything he wanted (particularly as it relates to popularity), but on many fronts, it will be better than that of his predecessor. Bill Clinton may have been popular, but his moral failings brought shame on the office of the presidency and tainted the people's house.

Is she [Tara Wall is deputy editor for The Washington Times] serious? So little things like torture, illegal wars and treason aren't worse than a B.J.?

Sunday, January 18, 2009

The Vatican's Apostolic Penitentiary is holding a two day conference on the five "ultimate crimes" of abortion, using the Eucharistic host in Satanic rites, clergy pedophile offences, violation of the confessional, and "offences against the person of the Pope."

For the first time Vatican officials will this week discuss in public sins committed by clergy considered so deadly that they require forgiveness from the Pope himself, The Times Online reports.

NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg called the pilot [Chesley Sullenberger] "masterful," adding that he had spoken to him and the last passenger to get off the plane. Here's an account of the mayor's press conference.

Perhaps this has been going on for a while, but I’ve never noticed it before. YouTube users often create an original video using their favorite popular song as the audio. I’m afraid that they won’t be able to do that much longer, since YouTube has started muting videos that use unauthorized copyrighted music (and that pretty much means all user-created videos.)

Guess that little period of democratic creative freedom is about over, no?

Team,I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.

In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for Apple's day to day operations, and I know he and the rest of the executive management team will do a great job. As CEO, I plan to remain involved in major strategic decisions while I am out. Our board of directors fully supports this plan.

Canada stood alone before a United Nations human rights council yesterday, the only one among 47 nations to oppose a motion condemning the Israeli military offensive in Gaza.

The vote before the Geneva-based body shows the Stephen Harper government has abandoned a more even-handed approach to the Middle East in favour of unalloyed support of Israel, according to some long-time observers.

Many "reply all" fiascos result in mere embarrassment, but American diplomats have been told they may be punished for sending mass responses after an e-mail storm nearly knocked out one of the State Department's main electronic communications systems.

A cable sent last week to all employees at the department's Washington headquarters and overseas missions warns of unspecified "disciplinary actions" for using the "reply to all" function on e-mail with large distribution lists.

The cable, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, was prompted by a major interruption in departmental e-mail caused by numerous diplomats hitting "reply all" to an errant message inadvertently addressed and copied to several thousand recipients.

"Department staff hitting 'reply to all' on an e-mail with a large distribution list is causing an e-mail storm on the department's OpenNet e-mail system," says the unclassified cable that was sent Thursday by Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy.

He said the result was "effectively a denial of service as e-mail queues, especially between posts, back up while processing the extra volume of e-mails."

Forgive us world (this is not the first time I've had to apologize to the world for our government's scummy behavior), but unfortunately we've saddled ourselves with a Conservative government. As you all know, conservatives have about as much compassion as a doorknob, and this case is no exception.

Canada has ordered the deportation of the first woman US soldier to have sought asylum in the country to avoid being deployed to Iraq...

...Last year, the Canadian parliament passed a non-binding motion granting asylum to deserters from the Iraq war.

But correspondents say the governing Conservatives opposed the motion, not willing to risk upsetting Washington over the issue.

Harper's crew has also covered up the little fact that the U.S. tortures too.

Harper, you disgust me. What you are doing is UnCanadian, if such a word exists.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Manhatta (1921) is a short documentary film which revels in the haze rising from city smoke stacks. With the city as subject, it consists of 65 shots sequenced in a loose non-narrative structure, beginning with a ferry approaching Manhattan and ending with a sunset view from a sky scraper.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

The bigotry that infects the Republican party and the cynicism and cowardice that dominates the Democrats on this issue prevent such success and integration in America. And yet many of the causes that have prevailed in Britain - marriage equality and military service, for example - were pioneered on this side of the Atlantic.

Technically true, but the man is so unable to come to terms with the fact that on this issue, the U.S. may be the worst backwards in the Western world.

And not even a nod to Canada, where gay marriage has been the law for years..and the world didn't end.

Friday, January 09, 2009

From a New Years Eve cavalcade of comedy, with comic genesises Véronique Cloutier and Louis Morissette:

After initially confusing the incoming president with a black Quebec singer, the anchor tells viewers that all black people look alike. He goes on to say that viewers at home shouldn't worry about Obama stealing their purses, but that he might steal their television sets.

Supporters of the November ballot measure that banned gay marriages in California have filed a lawsuit seeking to block their campaign finance records from public view, saying the reports have led to harassment of donors.

"No one should have to worry about getting a death threat because of the way he or she votes," said James Bopp Jr., an attorney representing two groups that supported Proposition 8, Protect Marriage.com and the National Organization for Marriage California.

"This lawsuit will protect the right of all people to help support causes they agree with, without having to worry about harassment or threats."

They didn't seem to mind exposing opponents of Prop 8 before the election...

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a misguided actor...

Over the holidays, perhaps you've heard, Michael Cera received this in his stocking: A proposal to play the greatest red-shirted dork of all in a big-screen revival of Gilligan's Island.

Show creator Sherwood Schwartz and his son, Lloyd Schwartz, openly talked up plans to turn the campy, much-loved TV show about island castaways into a flick. And at the top of their list for the part of Gilligan? Brampton, Ont.'s finest: Cera.

Just when you think humanity can't sink any lower, along comes another idiot who can actually stomach Sacha Cohen.

Is it cos I is black Jesus?

I NEVER thought SACHA BARON COHEN could make a more controversial film than BORAT.

But it sounds like he has in the movie dubbed by fans on t’internet as Bruno: Delicious Journeys Through America For The Purpose Of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable In The Presence Of A Gay Foreigner In A Mesh T-Shirt.

A BART spokesman has said there is more to the story than what can be seen on the grainy images.

Yes, I'll bet they hope we see another story there, just not the one that is glaringly obvious...

The article spends too much time on the protests, and not enough on what is clearly a cold blooded shooting.

Hundreds of citizens and community leaders packed into the Bay Area Rapid Transit board room and two overflow rooms Thursday, demanding the group take responsibility for a subway officer's shooting that left a young man dead.

The BART board of directors meeting started with a moment of silence for Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old father who was killed on New Year's Day in a crowded train station, but it quickly turned into a parade of angry speeches by elected officials, activists and outraged citizens.

For nearly six hours, according to local media, about 60 people addressed the board.

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

More ugliness from the so called "defenders of marriage"...of course ignoring the fact California votes took rights away, which seems to be ok with this guy.

Hate is hate, and Mr Jordan Lorence isn't fooling me. It's just another case of the bully blaming the victim for actually disliking the bullying...

Proponents of redefining marriage couldn't wait for the new president to be sworn in before demanding that he erase from the inauguration ceremony a prominent American who disagrees with them.

The target of their rhetorical bombardment is Rick Warren, the popular Christian pastor from Southern California.

President-elect Barack Obama has asked Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration. Not so fast, cries Kathryn Kolbert, head of People for the American Way, an organization that claims to advance equality and freedom of speech and religion (but not for Rick Warren and those who agree with his marriage views) in a piece published on CNN.com.

Warren's grave sin? Along with 52 percent of California voters, he supported California's Proposition 8, which affirmed the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman. What a radical!

Of course, the writer ignores the other loving statements made by Mr. Warren....and the thrusting of religion to politics...

Monday, January 05, 2009

Who imagined that in 2009, the world's governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy - backed by the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the US to China - is sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most broken countries on earth. But behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an untold scandal. The people our governments are labeling as "one of the great menace of our times" have an extraordinary story to tell -- and some justice on their side.

Sunday, January 04, 2009

Friday, January 02, 2009

That is if you don't take into account the random shootings and the surpassing ugliness of the architecture...

Toronto is a fine city to both live and work, according to several world experts.

A flurry of liveability and business climate reports, all released this past year, peg Toronto as one of the world's best cities.

The international surveys -- conducted by Mastercard, KPMG, Forbes and The Economist magazines among others -- compared the world's largest cities in categories ranging from public transit, the availability of labour, and the number of patents registered, to a city's economic growth and business conference amenities.

Note the criteria..Toronto makes the business crowd happy. And if they're happy, fuck the rest.